Report 2014-109 Recommendations and Responses in 2015-041

Report 2014-109: Sexual Assault Evidence Kits: Although Testing All Kits Could Benefit Sexual Assault Investigations, the Extent of the Benefits Is Unknown

Department

Number of Years Reported As Not Fully Implemented

Total Recommendations to Department

Not Implemented After One Year

Not Implemented as of 2014-041 Response

Not Implemented as of Most Recent Response

Department of Justice

1

1

1

N/A

1

Recommendation To: Justice, Department of

To report to the Legislature about the effectiveness of its RADS program and to better inform decisions about expanding the number of analyzed sexual assault evidence kits, Justice should amend its agreements with the counties participating in the RADS program to require those counties to report case outcome information, such as arrests and convictions for the sexual assault evidence kits Justice has analyzed under the program. Justice should then report annually to the Legislature about those case outcomes.

Response

Justice has amended its memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreements with counties participating in the RADS program. The amendment will require the counties to use CODIS Hit Outcome Program (CHOP) database in order to report case outcome information such as arrests and convictions for probative RADS kits as a way of tracking progress in cases. The amended MOU agreements were signed by the counties and they have agreed to use CHOP to track adjudication of cases. Justice will submit an annual report, beginning in October 2015, to the Legislature on case outcome information for those counties participating in the RADS program.

Additionally, BFS created a new database called Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Tracking (SAFE-T) for tracking all sexual assault kits including RADS kits. SAFE-T has been fully implemented but there is no mandate to use the database which is linked to CHOP.